Weirdness abounds

It can be very tedious and difficult to surmount the obstacle of yourself. Truthfully I have probably missed numerous opportunities because I wanted to hide in the woods with a spoon stuck in my mouth.

SUCH a good choice.

It's really terrific that it is possible watch videos about artists talking about their songs...I just heard about one called Zero Point. I'd never heard it before, until just a few minutes ago. I am, though, SO glad that "Datura" is on that album. I've listened to it countless times on the way to places including my favorite park in this area. The other day, I took a photo on my camera of a big painting hanging in their visitor center. It was titled "Datura." I went "Ooooooo..." I checked out the Scarlet's Walk CD from a library. The picture of a slide in it makes me think I might have seen a slide like that out in the middle of nowhere, when I was kid and visited my father when he was stationed in Alabama. This is just like, when you find the author and you want to keep reading their stuff. It's interesting because a while ago I couldn't find any CDs by her. I on purpose stopped listening for a while. Like about a year. Then I looked a few times and couldn't find her CDs. Then I found them again, in an incredibly obvious place--the big CD book album I'd looked through before. Well there was a reason for that...I don't know what it was, but there was a reason.

In head...

Little Earthquakes
In a bookstore I once trained in and revisited recently, I understood the "Rag and Bone" of "Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart" to be about relics after I saw a book by that name in the religion section, and I thought of Isabella Clara Eugenia knocking one over and normally Philip II, kind and loving (to his daughter) became furious, it's a sort of image I have in my head, not from ever reading such a thing though, and then the poem book opened to this Thoreau poem...Somewhat seperate is to remember the older couple who came in a few years ago and seemed quite nice and amused by me, the opposite of a group of fearful bullies, especially after I mentioned why I saw Los Alamos as a kid. "Thanks for sharing the joy with us!" I was pretty sure General Joy was radiating out of their pores. Maybe not even unconciously either.

Odd

I was looking up stuff about the San Gabriel Valley and the movie Shopping For Fangs came up. Apparently it's set there! Weird. I saw that in Seattle when I was in college and loved it! I talked to one of the guys who made it. I asked where they find their actors. He said, almost apolegetically, "usually a talent agency." Ha ha...I miss being so young and naive...Oh also I asked if it would be possible to get it on video and he kind of laughed as if it were just about impossible for that to happen. Not anymore! Just think how easy it is to get so much stuff now. I wonder what I'd think if I saw it again now...

Unbelievable rigamaroll over stolen paychecks. I can't believe how many people I've been directed to talk to, call, etc. and still no results. Look, I really don't appreciate being given the runaround. Stealing my paychecks is FRAUD. It's not like I just walked into a restaurant and let cash fall out of my pocket.

Amazing.

Electron Boy article.

In My Head!

You'll Be Taken Care Of.
I want the album now.

Wise participant

Circle dance...
(Thoughts thoughts thoughts. I might move. That is simultaneously normal and like going off the high diving board at the park in Saratoga, NY when I was a kid. That was so so so high. Car rides at night, staring at billboards, wanting to grow up, and live a glamourous billboard kind of life? No, maybe just be able to drive the car at night by the billboards and feel free. Would being a certain kind of famous success be like having the cake and eating it too? But I'm not supposed to have cake. I have blood sugar issues. However sometimes I have it anyway. But still. I don't know much, but I know I should spend more time in the mountains.)
Circle dance.

2 ???

Circa 2007. In some kind of order:
1) Working at a restaurant and some guys come up and tell you repeatedly that some guy they know is going to try to "jump the fence" tonight. "Don't let him," they say. Creepy euphemism?
2) Working at the same place and a group of people come in and act like bullies and make weird comments which makes you wonder if maybe they read your e-mail and work for the government. Or maybe they are involved in some kind of media thing? Is it possible to even tell the difference?

Photos

Is it not crazy, to think, of all the pictures floating around on this place we have nowadays called the internet. Yes. Pictures can tell all kinds of different stories. Quirks of personality. It must be a little weird, for example, to walk into a room with big blown up pictures of yourself. Odd. In that case, I guess you should either enjoy it, like someone's giving you a big tray of cupcakes, or take a minute and calm down, maybe have a little spritz of mineral water. Some pictures are more jolly and some are more goofy. I say, can one ever have enough goofy-ish pictures on the internet? Then, of course there is the dark seething side. I lay bricks. this is the look I have when I get obsessed with military industrial complexes. Jackalope!
Cantelope!
Someday I will have the means or fortitude to transfer photos on the internet. For some reason the universe or else my subconscious always gets in the way by putting up little road blocks. Too bad. I love visuals. I did not dream of being a writer when I was little, I wanted to draw and paint and make things out of clay. But then I started reading.

Tanto Tempo

I looked up some lyrics because the song I liked earlier also reminded me of Tanto Tempo.

Ando tanto tempo a perguntar
Porque esperar tanto assim de alguem
Percorrendo espacos no mesmo lugar
Nao sei a quanto tempo estou a te buscar

Num segundo eu vou
Sabendo e percebendo o seu sabor
Sem ter medo estou
Correndo contra o vento sem nunhum rancor

Ando tanto tempo a perguntar
Porque esperar tanto assim de alguem
Sem saber
Sem qualquer medo de ver

Maybe my life...

Could be a little more like how this song sounds...I mean musically, not necessarily the video or lyrics. I have not dissected the lyrics at all. Duerme.

Taps

All's quiet here but I just heard "Taps" through closed windows. Maybe it came from Ft. Myer?
Which also has a website.
Which now also has a page which references RAINN.
~~~~~~
I was thinking about the Watervliet Arsenal. I spent a lot of time there as a kid. On the grounds, playground and at the swimming pool. In fact, when I hear that name, I almost automatically think "swimming pool." I started to look for photos. I found none of the swimming pool I found one of this sign. I thought of how I picked up a book about the history of women and firearms at the bookstore the other day. Swimming pool. Arsenal. Arsenal does not equal swimming pool? How is that so? Did we kids used to crawl on old cannons like they were big toys, or did I make that up?

Special song experiences

Thieves by She & Him was the first one, sounded sad but beautiful, heard in a darkish (not lightless but no artifical lights) room of computer monitors as I updated software....

Later, in the park, I reread some of Caramba! Which I read by the pool last year. I think I will also reread PrairyErth. Both books kind of make me think of hot sun and the smell of cocoa butter or other kinds of sunscreen products.

California Stars was the second one. In Chipotle, thinking about how hard the people behind the counter are working, I worked burrito bar in college, how grateful I felt for my food, and wow do they really put sticks of butter in the rice? and kind of simultaneously thinking about stars (in the SKY) And how at some point in the past I read a book that described a girl getting off a plane in California and being greeted by Hari Krishnas...

~~~~~~
On Mother's Day, played Tori Amos CDs for my mother, the former piano/music teacher, on the way back from Sky Meadows. She said what would be the best if I got one CD? We thought maybe The Beekeeper would be the best. A beekeeper was out there, too.

(Remembering, could almost, by surprise, without knowing or planning on it, cry when describing things, reading a part of a NAGPRA paper to an audience, power point slides as a backdrop, surprise, or describing videos to songs, like one of a girl who is pointing to the sky and her mother is the plane's pilot, surprise, maybe that was halfway to laughing, one could almost, in an unexpected freeing transition to spontaneity.)

Books

Still reading White Mother...

Yesterday, I carried many out from the library. I almost reread the two memoirs by Paula Fox, but the load was already too heavy. I heard an interview with Isabel Allende on "Studio 360" and it was pleasing to me. Last night a friend brought me a bag of books as a gift. Cheesy teenage beach romance novels, Anastasia Again! and Blubber. He also bought me a ticket to Ironman II. It was better than I expected, though I felt quite sick by the end, and vowed to get myself back to better health. I am so mystified by Crying Wind, and wonder, what was her real upbringing. Also wonder, can I get a hold of When the Stars Danced anywhere? It's not in the Library of Congress. It's been quite interesting to read books and articles about NAGPRA when I have to do things like go to notaries and fill out paperwork to retrieve old paychecks which someone apparently stole/forged.
~~~~~
Hey cool, they are talking about Seattle-area terayaki on "The Splendid Table." I totally remember that after moving to Seattle we started sometimes ordering a strange new food called "terayaki." The guy says it is "working class food." All I knew was that my mother's boyfriend liked it.

Sleep...

I have a headache.
I feel exhausted.
Doors may be opening!
I want to visit a new city.
I have nothing intellectual to say.
Aw, why is everyone picking on J.B.?
I never heard of him before.
I like that article.
The journalist is talented.
I have a minor throat and ear something.
I'm going to drink peppermint iced tea sweetened with agave nectar.

End end end end end !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oooooo I totally fried my brain on final exam type stuff. How to be under the wire. Hmmm. Felt kind of good afterwards! Tho I don't know if turning it in so under the wire-like means an A. But I don't care that much. It's just that I DID it. All I've been DOING has been PAPERS and being a STUDENT and its FUN. Now. That. Spring. Semester. Ended!!!! And I got compliments on the beast of a NAGPRA paper I wrote! Yeay. :-) ;-) :-) Oh, still little unknown me. Little lonely petunia...sike! (psyche.) I always thought it was with an s...
Many more thoughts! For another time or post though...
Maybe I will go knit! Jesus I can't believe I don't have to read something!

Hmmm

Nice...
Beauty of Speed.
Aw...Beauty of Speed in Utrecht!
I've been to Utrecht.
I could have even been there.
I walked into a place that looked like that.
But it was in 2001. Which was before a lot of things.

Dark dream

Sometime before I woke up I had a truly awful dream. I don't even know if it was a dream. It had something to do with the shriek of a mother as a boy drowned in the ocean and a large ship sailed away into the night, or the early morning.
It was cold and awful.

Peculiarities

Somehow over my NAGPRA paper I became a fan of The Real Housewives of New York City tonight. Hmmm. I just became aware that a teacher in Vancouver has been forced to stay home for the rest of the school year because she admitted that she had a child with her same sex partner. Hoooo...funny.

O?

Oh! Sadness of last class.
Oh! Old historic buildings with stories...of white men of black women of thrify people of widows of school masters of suffragists of WAVES of laundresses
Oh! when she sings
Yaldaboath
Saklas
I'm calling you
Samael
You are not alone
I say
You are not alone
In your darkness
You are not alone
Baby
You are not alone
Oh child with corn rows in her hair who turned back to the store and shouted "thank you for my toy!"
Oh dog that destroyed another razor
Oh book, White Mother To A Dark Race
Oh research.
Oh spark.
(Spark?)
Oh classes of fires.
Oh appropriate fire extinguishers for classes of fires.

Clothing swap

It was at my friend's friend's synagogue basement. A basement full of females. I put out my clothes and cut my chin in the bathroom. Uuuuunpretty. After long moments in the bathroom, I finally emerged. I talked to a girl who said she would have been just devastated if her first child wasn't a boy. Me in thought: I just have no clue what you are talking about. I left because I didn't want any clothes and I didn't feel good about my cut, among other things. A guy outside yelled at me something about the way I come walking out of the building with my hair bouncing off my shoulders means I'm going to look like some guy's dream. I just kept saying "Oh, really?" as I walked to my car. Then he said "Look at me, I'm living out of A BAG." He went on, "Now, I'm coming from a male perspective." Me: "Oh really?" Him: "I'm from California." "Oh, really?" "REALLY" he said, with a "You are stupid" inflection in his voice. Then: "You're Jewish right?" "No." "What? You have to be. You just came out of there. Isn't this a synagogue?" "Yeah but I'm not Jewish, I'm just visiting." "There's nothing wrong with being Jewish." "I know, but I'm not Jewish!" Then I got into my not-so-rattletrap seeming car, which next to some guy living out of a bag kind of felt like a limo or something, and drove away in a bad mood.

Other worlds

Worlds were on the island. The houses we didn't move into. A woodstove house. Old Victorian house with orchard around it. Island homes. How can someone live in the same small community his or her whole life? Houses with land around them. Woods and silence outside.

Reread

and (maybe for the first time?) cried (multiple times)
Sign of the Beaver
My old book has this cover.
In 5th grade, I think I got my Grandma to read it.

Why Duran Duran?

In Watervliet, at Eastview, where the water tower broke, which came up later in a therapy session, me seeing the the vulnerable figures of mom and sister and maybe little me on TV, spectators to the flood, water pouring in other peoples' windows, not ours, but also another day, the pool being dug and the layers of clay and the neighbors the older couple the lady had a heart attack, but that was later, earlier, her son (a big third grader, I was to be in grade one, the teacher would hate me for nice clothes or southern accent or something...) wanted me to go with him to see the layers, the clay, the pool, dug by construction workers, but I was forbidden to leave the steps, he wanted me to go with him, he pitied me, he didn't approve of my captor, and he brought the clay and made it into a heart. Later I met a third grade girl who came from a kind a background different from my own and she taught me many things about life and grown ups and deceit, pain....Looked up her name, and wondered if this would be her? Yeah. Huh. All Duran Duran and Michael Jackson. She had a big poster of the latter, in his yellow sweater, in her room.

Prescription

If this sort of thing is out of character for you, here's what I suggest: arrange to live in such a way that you talk to nothing but trees for a week. Do it!
If that sort of thing is old hat for you, then perhaps you should do something else.

My songs today!

Sort of.
Electric Barbarella.
Save A Prayer.
I found out in class that Top Chef was filmed at Mt. Vernon.

Excuse me

I would just like to point out that I was waiting here first (like 15-20 minutes ago) before that guy that JUST walked in to see the notary, way after you stuck me in the corner over here. EXCUSE ME.
Little things.
Rankle.
Not sorry I spoke up; maybe you won't do that next time.
It's too bad because I'm sure you didn't like me as much as him, but that's how it goes sometimes, sadly.
(I said much less, and what I did say was much more succinct and polite in real life though.)
Women as well as men can too often be unconciously sexist.

Sometimes on car drives

I have grandiose and sweeping thoughts.
But that's on car drives.
There's no keypad on a steering wheel.
Tonight, in class, I "winged it." It was no big deal. We just had to come up with plans for press releases for museums and not enough time, and I didn't even have a press release, just ideas. But the other student I was working with told me I was very impressive.
Well, that was cool.
Yes, I began to wonder, in the car, why I have not been "successful" yet.
I have no time to go into it all, but I did have many thoughts.
I also still find the idea that some people will follow around other people as a part of their creative process to be somewhat odd, but lo que sea.
I wasted or tortured or nothing that dramatic but something kind of saddish about looking through an old yearbook. Maybe it was a waste of time. Poking at something.
Um.
I have to go to a notary tomorrow.

Oh

Oh so many thoughts too many to express!
Isn't Horses a great song?

I thought about recently...

The Witch of Blackbird Pond.
Needing to work on the NAGPRA paper.
The dog destroyed my flash drive this morning.
Major Tom in German.
I know I saw the Major Tom English version video on MTV as a kid.
I have long, tangled hair.
I'm wearing a grey hooded West Point pullover.

Lost...maybe recovered.

I posted about some moments today, but lost it. That's what happens when I try to use my phone because I have no other source of internet in my room! Sigh.
Well, I very much enjoyed listening to Ira Glass's show about siblings and babysitting. Especially the last story about siblings who made up a family they'd babysit for to escape from their unhappy and controlling (and poor and widowed) mother, and then they'd go run away and sleep on the beach.
As I was listening to it, I was finishing knitting my first scarf out of a skein of purply-light blue yarn that grew paler and paler...I thought of the sea because I might have some left over and might try to combine it with a darker, more intense yarn which is somewhere between navy and turquoise, but somewhat greenish ("Lagoon" is the color.) I don't know what the paler yarn is called.

And after a day of sorting files, moving things up and down stairs, and throwing things away, I waited for my order in a NY style pizza joint (with an amusingly attitudinal employee who banged rolls of quarters for the register in what seemed an almost chastising fashion b/c I didn't contribute to the tip jar...oh yes, and I did know the whole time that he had better things to do in his life than wait on me!) and this song came on: "Whatever happened to the boy that I once knew, the boy who said he'd be true...oh no oh no oh no no no no no...Remember...walking in the sand..." (Would the daughter who ran away from her mother as a teenager have ever listened to it?)
~~~~
(Also I liked the ones about the sisters in the airport. I liked the whole episode, but at times the musical segments were a little less pleasing.
Also this evening I was compelled to look more into the history of Germany.
My last thought of this post is...my thoughts are more interesting than my writings, usually.)

"Sounds like some kind of supergirl that some feminist would approve of or something"

Title post comes from a character in a video my friend sent me: Cake: Short Skirt/Long Jacket.
Friend's dream #1: He was playing basketball with a tall, soft spoken girl. It was intentionally mixed gender and no jumping was allowed to make it fair. She was quite good and it was really hard.
Friend's dream #2: He was looking at the website of a "rockstar" engineer who was feminist (I.e. she was an engineer but kind of a famous celebrity, too.) Her website had three sections: Blush, Brush, and Bush. Blush was the section for beauty or make-up or something, Brush was the section about engineering stuff. And Bush was the title of the feminist issues section.

Random

Day's events: Evil beagle defaced my pretty woodburned gold paint Matrushka doll! However the hell you spell that. My super activist friend posted a picture of herself with the DC mayor. She's frowning and he's smiling with an arm around her. Ha ha. It is too funny. My friend who wrote She Played Elvis is figuring out how to sell her book in the states.
Hiccup
My bellisimo friend on another coast had "surprisingly feminist dreams" last night, which he told me about. We also dissected my dream, which signified some kind of job-related anxiety, which then reminded me of a seemingly small incident, in which I had tried and failed to obtain a certain opportunity. It was as if I'd simply bottled it up inside of me and after talking about it I began to let it go a bit more and after a long while I uncovered a little creature of hopefulness that had existed at one time, who had for various reasons felt totally crushed, and some of that old anxiety dissipated, and I could allow myself to feel hopeful again!
Oh and I played the Jackie's Strength remixes CD and got the Father Lucifer Sylkscreen Remix in my head. I was combing my hair at a stop light and looked over to see people at the busstop looking and (I think) listening!

Hard

Trying to write this paper on NAGPRA and joyously combing the Chicago Manual of Style. Ha. Thoughts.

"If you're a thought
You will want me to think you"
--Scarlet's Walk

Recently, I went to an Easter service with my friend and her parents. It was in English, Greek, and Arabic. It was lovely; we didn't kiss the bishop's ring though. Her parents had stories to tell, and a few days later I got a little shell-shocked from looking up stuff about the "Ukrainian Holocaust." (Cliche, but I walked out of a building and the air smelled, if not sweeter, more intriguing, and every person I passed seemed equally complex and precious.) And recently watched a documentary about the German military guys who resisted Hitler, the "Valkyries," (well maybe they didn't call themselves that, but in my head I started to) including old film footage of their trials after the failed plot. I wondered if I'm more mature now? A while back, I learned from her about the Ukrainian Amazons...

"miss we don't take cat litter"

Well okay grouchiest man in the world at Goodwill. (Actually I figured as much but I was hoping.) I REALLY hope someone appreciates the other stuff, including a full seat of dishes which I carefully wrapped in paper. Big plates, little plates, cups, glasses, bowls, cream and sugar dishes. ARRGH. Why don't you know how to make me feel better about my GIVINGNESS? Like the Salvation Army people did. I WANTED MY FEELING OF ELATION! Next time I'll go THERE. They practically MAKE you take a receipt. Unlike here, no receipt giving guys in sight. "Why don't you all get in a line." GROUCHINESS!!! Sign in the background intended to make donors feel good because we help disabled people get jobs. "Miss, we don't take cat litter!"
Life is sometimes kinda funny.

Historic house...

It's so different to see this version of the story of Anne Frank on PBS, since I've been to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam. Mostly I don't remember it, but I do still remember a bit. Especially the pictures on her bedroom wall and when her father spoke in a film, saying he was very surprised when he read her diary, that he didn't know his daughter had such deep thoughts and feelings, because she didn't express that in their day to day life.
After I went, the girl I was with took me to a cart and, because I said I'd like to, we tried some kind of fish that was raw or pickled or something. I didn't care for it then. But I think I'd probably like it better now, for some reason.
The Netherlands and Peru. The only places I've been to, outside of North America, still.

watched last night!

Unmistaken Child.

Very sad, but people need to be aware

Test Case

memoirs are good for me.

Corked.
The Bread of Angels.
A Country Year.
Heaven Lake. (Okay, that's actually a memoirish novel.)
~~~~~
She Played Elvis.
Because they're all funny. ;-)
(I haven't' read the whole of the first and the last on this list yet.)

Tonight

A portion of it found me reading another memoir! Hoorah! I am a memoir kinda person.
The memoir was Corked. I read the first chapter or two or three before I bought a #77 Sage Woman and left. I had to. The word "Vashon" was in it. Yes I do buy things sometimes if I have money on me. And I liked the book, but I can't afford it now. While I was in the cafe, I got a text from a friend, cheerleading me for my crochet efforts. So far so good!
Listened to Scarlet's Walk on the way home.
Oh well, and I was ABOUT to post the songs I listened to. Boyfriend of mother walked into the kitchen in only his underwear. Thanks for the utter lack of decorum and ruining the nice little solo artistic moment I WAS having. CLUELESSNESS!!!!!!
ARRRRRR.
In spite of it, these are the songs:
Virginia
Gold Dust
Amber Waves
A Sorta Fairytale
Wednesday
Strange
Carbon
Maybe will do links later.
Later--well, Fuck Canada. "This video was blocked from your country for copyright reasons." I guess you're not superior to the U.S. in every way. I really thought it was funny when the Corked author met a woman in France who'd been a catering manager in D.C. and said she admired Americans' work ethic and thought living in the midst of vineyards in a French countryside was equivalent to a shithole. How come we can't trade places?

thunk up while flossing

in this life brown haired person learning to crochet coulda been a borderline bigamist in another

Status post

Sometimes HGTV fills me with despair.

!!!!!!

Well, I guess the president will be signing important legislation right next door tomorrow.

I like really like

Bliss. And pretty much the whole To Venus and Back album, which for some reason also kind of makes me think of driving out into Virginia, past DC, into outlaying areas. Loudoun, Aldie, Middleburg, and such. (And if I drive further, I suppose I will be in the area where long ago ancestors, descendants of a "Sir William the Extravagant," lived when they came here. Wonder where that was.)

I used to think that Riot Poof went "the sun is the woman, the man is the moon" like Australian Aboriginal beliefs.

Speaking of Australia, here's my old friend from school busking in front of the Sydney Opera house...

Interesting stuff

My Visceral Thought.
Prison Education Interview.
Both very interesting, in different ways.

The "Stuck in the Middle" song

IT was a very good song to listen to today!

What does it need

Travel? Crochet? Conference? Frozen Custard? New Job? New Language? Different Book? Meditation?

Really

want to be SUPER good at crocheting and knitting RIGHT now.
And drawing.
I cannot adequately express...yet...arrgh.
I used to feel like that about languages.
Sometimes patience is not my forte.
Hands hands hands hands hands hands hands.

I don't know

why some reviewers get so fixated on a person's age (to the point of getting it wrong! Because, unless I'm much mistaken, 27 in 2004 does not equal still 27 in 2010.) As for the reviewer's last sentence, but did she learn to eat? Well, I suppose she could've been trying to pay a compliment by comparing the author to Annie Dillard. At any rate, the book in question was a good read up until the "Twilight" release party kicked everyone out of the bookstore. (Which was open later anyway, so that was good too.) I also went to the library earlier and was quite shocked. The periodicals have been completely gouged. Yellow "Subscription canceled due to budget cuts" signs were EVERYWHERE. Meh! And regarding the unfortunate instances when one allows bitterness over lack of success to mar self expression: MEH. Whether it be stingy reviewers or bitter grad students who walk around writer's conferences, insufferably superior in attitude, complaining that everyone who received a prize or wads of cash is a worse writer than them. For some reason I read one or two of these diatribes on the internet the other day. Why? Did I miss them? I suppose I was just entirely too overflowing with joy as I perused websites about knitting. I need to rehabilitate the little inner masochist. Go ahead, and enjoy the joy, IT'S OKAY!!!!!

Grey Gardens

Tonight I went to a historic commission meeting at the big weird Masonic Temple, and then talked to my friend about Grey Gardens, because we watched the HBO movie on Sunday. Due to the fact that I managed to bind off without unraveling, I completed my first knitting project ever that night. A teal blue slightly misshapen bookmark or glasses lens cleaner! I'm so proud. Onwards to more projects. (Caps, scarves, potholders???)
With the two Edies, its almost like with Thomas Merton: I kind of feel like they are still alive.
People.
~~~~
Currently I'm moving in with my mother. So far it has involved a really old apartment in Arlington, crazy dogs, trips to the ER, and a variety of smells. (Hallway, dog, Febreeze.) Also a good trip to a restaurant where my mom told the story about how when she first saw me in the nursery she thought I was a black baby. Today, I was trying to take a nap before work. "WHAT?" my mother yelled at me. "I was just stressed out!" I had woken up, yelling or something, in protest to a commercial I somehow concocted in my head, involved a light skinned African American woman dancing around in sunlight and acting happy and fulfilled by some household cleaner product. Why did I do that. Maybe it's all the HGTV. But I like HGTV. However, I just watched a bit of HGTV with the sound off. It came to the part where they get to their house and find the note on the door that tells them about a "gift" from HGTV. And the family all walked in and all but collapsed in joy and rapture because of the giant flat screen embedded into the wall RIGHT OVER THE FIREPLACE.
The little girl's eyes.
It's amazing how much I wanted to scream.

Sure gets stuck in my head a lot lately

Glory of the 80s

I heart

collecting and reading travel literature from visitor centers. More than the average person, apparently. (So I've been told.) Often, the idea of lying on a well-made bed, poring over travel literature is quite a blissful one for me. Then again, I once lived in a foreign country with only 3 books to read for three months, and I learned how to make them slo-o-o-w-ly last.
Also I love to reread books. Multiple times. Yay for ADD.

Pets

As a kid, I might've (after I was allowed to get a cat) thought that I was a cat person among cat people, but then they all turned into dog people, and I was dubbed "Aunt Cruella." Still, I suppose a side of me could be a dog person. I recently discovered the joy of the dog park. It really is nice to let the little beast off the the leash and run around and enjoy himself, presuming that everyone present plays well with others. When I was younger, and more secretly full of myself, I thought I had a special connection with certain artists of the past and that I was meant to create some kind of beautiful work out of that, and so I somewhat felt harrumphy when I saw others doing so first. That was a long time ago, but after seeing a picture of one of those people surrounded by beloved pets, it kind of made me feel just a smidgen of guilt, (even though it was a long time ago!) Oh and I read all about Cesar Milan in February's Elle when I was in a doctor's waiting room. And had unexpected emotional moments watching a Dog Whisperer episode not long after that. But yes. There is the joy of the dog park. Not far from Cake Love, with it's little bowl of water, set out on the sidewalk for the dog lovers.

Cape Wind.

Bueno

There's a show on about the Peruvian Amazon.
I was living there in the 90s.
I wonder what to do with that.

Makes me feel

actually good about living on this planet:
Evan Lysacek's 2006 freeskate to "Carmen."
Also on UK TV since I can't watch the other on my older Mac.

Olympic Ice was GREAT

I LOVED this show in 2006!!! I want it to come back sooo bad!!!
Olympic Ice part of Episode 10
Olympic Ice part of Episode 13
I guess that on a channel called "Universal Sports" there's supposed to be a figure skating preview show which might be similar...

How weird

Yes, I said to myself. Almost 3 years, no raises, and then more or less let go on account of snow which shut down the federal government for four days. The hours I'm not there, I will be improving my situation. Studying. I will be progressing, I will be back-on-the-career path tracking...
Yes, or, eating half thawed frozen berries, and watching T.V.
(Not even the Olympics! Pretty Woman and Jersey Shore! WTF)

I believe in repetition

And re-meeting the creative ones who put out the books, music, art you like, like
Ropes &
Shapeshifters
tonight.

Progress?

Not long ago, when my sister married a veteran, he was told that they should not live on the post where I was born (Ft. Bragg), because it was not safe enough for a young woman. When I was little, there were times my mother was furious that she had to stay in all day at Ft. Sill, because my Dad didn’t think she should go out by herself. But I also remember being in the car and seeing him pull over on base or post so he could jump out and salute the flag. He graduated in the same class as someone who is in the news a lot. (Petraeus.) I shook little gold and black pom poms at Army football games. I used to wear a “My Daddy is a Paratrooper” t-shirt. I cried in an airport when he had to go overseas.

West Pointers always impressed me as a bunch of adults who were fit, happy, and nice to little kids at their BBQs. I remember one who joked around and showed me how to squirt water out of his hands, pretending there was a frog in the swimming pool at the Watervliet arsenal. But as I grew up, I learned that bad things can still happen among good people. In high school, I heard the story of someone whose 12-year-old daughter had been assaulted on base by a group of GI’s. She never told anyone until she wound up in the hospital years later. A girl that used to live here told me a story about her friend, a very intelligent, scientifically-minded guy who went to West Point. She said it had been his dream to go there. But a female classmate told him about a classmate who assaulted her. She made him swear not to tell anyone because she was afraid of negative consequences. After this, her friend became obsessed with watching this guy’s every move, and entertained fantasies of revenge. Finally, because he felt consumed with anger and so helpless to do anything about it, he quit. (She said he went back to school somewhere else though.) I guess that would have been in the ‘90s.

Today for some reason I had “Proud to be an American” running through my head. I understand this song gives many people good, fuzzy feelings of pride and patriotism. Not just the WASPy Christian types either. (Which is what I am if you look at my heritage.) As this song was bugging me, I turned the TV on and found a hearing on the Defense Task Force on Sexual Assault in the Military. While some can listen to that patriotic song and automatically get those warm feelings, it is not so easy for me to feel that way. But at least some things are improving. Incidents that probably were routinely swept under the carpet when I was a kid, or in my teens and twenties, have begun to be seriously addressed, most recently by:
Rear. Ad. Louis Iasiello (Ret.)
Brig. Gen. Sharon Dunbar (who pointed out that there are both male and female victims)
Rep. Loretta Sanchez
Rep. Niki Tsongas
Chairwoman Susan Davis

After the maelstrom

of the upcoming chocolate-gorging, bouquet-buying, hallmark holiday, spring will be coming so EAT DAISIES! Hee hee.
Not being a person who eats everything raw, lately I'm curious about cooking non-wheat types of grain.
How about this little episode on Amaranth.

Iceskating is coming!

This weekend! Yay!!!!
I still love watching this clip of the Canadians at the 2002 Olympics.

guess what a really awesome food is

pumpkin seeds.

I kind of like this article about the snow.

Some books I'm liking

Dr. Atkins Vita-Nutrient Solution (not the famous diet!)
Angel Therapy (my copy, from a library booksale, has a different cover.)

Seeing other people's side, too

I guess that the whole health insurance (I'm looking for some now) situation is a challenge to us to see how open we can be to finding a solution and that involves seeing others' sides of the story. So if you have good insurance, but you're afraid of losing it, or even if you only have okay health insurance but you're afraid of things getting worse, this is something that shows how much you are able to see another's situation. If you don't have good insurance, and need it, and want change, how compassionate can you be towards others who seem to be blocking that change?
If you are sick, and stressed out, how can you be compassionate towards other people? And if you hit a wall or feel like your limit has been reached, maybe all you can do for a moment is pray. I personally know people who have worked very hard in their life and now are out of options because they had cancer when they were younger and no insurance company will accept them. This is a funny quote too: "I think it's the height of hypocrisy that a single-payer system is American-as-apple-pie if you're 65, but a socialist nightmare if you're 64." From: Do You Want to Be Right, or...

Some people I've known

Some people I don't talk to know...(Now? Know?)
Is it okay to eat the green part of garlic?
What is aioli anyway?
Oh was that like the mayonesa they used to put on pizza.
What happened to some people.
Remember when the staff at the lodge made a good dinner and dressed up and painted their faces and ran around the diningroom half naked and beat drums and acted "native" because the boat the day before hadn't brought sufficiently scrumptious food and the tourists were complaining and they knew the show would make them happy?
What if this girl is someone I once knew, someone who slept in my bed, along with her cousin, because the family thought the reason I was sick was because I was sad her brother had to go up river and work in the lodge and they felt sorry for me because I was solita?
I brought them a book. Obrando Como Si El Dios...
Is this cat really that smiley, or photoshopped?

New turn of events

Hah, I sort of, like, got fired from a job today. That's a first! Well, I couldn't go in. There's snow, you see. There's roads, you see, that aren't good for my car to be on right now. There's 13 miles of that sort of road, you see. The buses weren't running. The Metro stations by me weren't open.
Yeah, but someone just didn't see.
(Responsible things I did: warned in advance, called people, tried to get shift covered, asked them if they want to send out a truck to pick me up.)
Instead, I'm told I have a "bad attitude." Ha. I guess that attitude is shared by my other employer & school and the fact that the federal government is getting shut down tomorrow. And the roads...
Nature must have a bad-ass attitude.
It's a sign!!!!

Something of a surprise

Lately all I want to read is about how to heal yourself. I thought, ugh, afterall, what use do I have for literature. Especially after I read a fiction book from the library that seemed to make me feel worse. I thought, give up on that stuff, old English Major. But who knows, maybe I still do like "literature." Maybe Samuel Johnson was quite interesting...

Came to mind

She's Leaving Home.
She's Leaving Home.

This is still cool :-D

Perelandra Soil-less Gardens

Heigh ho heigh ho

I think tomorrow it's off to the allopathic Dr. I go.
I keep getting better and then worse and I just can't keep doing that. It's too unpleasant and nerve-wracking. Think you're better? BOOM. Sorry! Just kidding! So I will also try to contact an allopath.
Probably my subconscious self is making me do that.
I suppose some part of me finds it absolutely amazing that some people could actually care more about the deficit and some future fearful, politically motivated predictions than the health of the human body and what is going on RIGHT now at this very moment with people who work in all the lowest positions in society. People who serve you, who take care of your food and produce in the grocery store, who chop your salad in the kitchen, who do all sorts of things you probably take for granted every day, and that you don't care if that person gets sick, lies in bed crying with a fever, feels they can't afford to go to the Dr., can't get insurance coverage because of a pre-existing condition, or if they can afford to, has to pay something like 2 k a month and then even that doesn't cover what they need. When I worked with a Dutch publisher, NONE of them complained about health insurance. They were also quite happy with their days off and longer maternity leaves and their benefits. None of them wanted to be American. Why? And supposedly there are horror stories about Canada...I've met a few Canadians who weren't unhappy with their benefits. Sure there are problems there as anywhere. There are plenty of problems here too! The only Canadians I have actually heard of complaining of anything was hearing a third-hand account about the neighbors' parents having to wait in line for a flu shot. In the grand scheme of things...Bothering to notice and caring about other people's well being, even if you might have the privileged position at the moment, which you are afraid of losing, is what is important.
Well that is how I feel about that.
I bet Jesus would want everyone to have health coverage.
Anyways for some reason I think I have to go the Dr. so I will improve my attitude about it. Since I have to go, it's beginning to seem to me...
I'm going to get better. I have been told so.
Roses, roses, roses, roses roses...
;-)

Cool, interesting stuff.

Soiiiless Garrrdensss ;-D

I feel better. Or then worse. I get knocked down but I get up again!
(oh illness, how it makes one okay with any positive song!!!)
I hope I can find the bottle of Kyolic garlic capsules.

Progressing beyond kefir and ricecakes.

Praise Jesus, it's possible that the money I've spent (er, charged) on supplements and expensive organic food, and the diligence with which I've been using essences, seems to be paying off. Not cheap, but perhaps still cheaper than the allopathic route.
Today on FB I saw a link to this new article.
Maybe it was partly inspired by this, written two years ago?
Sigh. I feel that the older I get the more I am saddened or (much better) amused by people who appear to think they know it all about politics. Liberal, conservative. Spread your negative analysis all over the internet. I daresay if you publish and present at a conference you will meet with great success. Rise, O rise to the top, spout of wisdom, as you travel with your gospel and toss their fears back to their faces, for they will feel reaffirmed, and in a wobbly sort of way, momentarily safe in their convictions. It will probably be enough to for them to pay to see you, for a while.

Say what you will

about enjoyment of food, delicious dishes from varying cultures, etc. For example Ethiopian places are known for their wonderful vegetarian cuisine (at least, to my formerly vegetarian self...although I was probably always was more pescatarian/flexitarian) and I contemplated trying other Ethiopian dishes recently. But when health is put to the test, I think the Raw Family people are really onto something. (Although I think that it may be wise to refrain from storing some foods, like fruits blended with vegetables, lest it turn into something weird.) I think it's good to start with eating simple healthy salads. Hmmm, after reading this, maybe I should get another food dehydrator. And this Why I Say I Am 95% Raw is cool. It nicely sums up what I thought when I read the original book, which I still have, though I respected the information in it.
Huh. Music video???
Other musical video...

Back to basics

Illness makes me consider it would be better to go back to some basics.
Healing with light site.
Can I be positive? Positive while sick? I hope some people will stay positive and healthy despite waves of negativity resulting from fear and ignorance. Positivity, positivity.
I do need to read about that shower of light.....
Maybe listen to a happy Beatles song...
Here Comes The Sun.

Some women of the North and South

Not much mentioned in my textbooks in school, but thank you internet.
Rachel Weeping for her Children
Grimkes. Grimkes and the Bible.
Three Quaker maidens of Waterford

Old dauguerreotype

Not exactly the conservatives of their day...

Life findings

Today I took a picture of a sundial. I have a camera now, for the first time in ages. The sundial is in the background of the digital clock on the newly activated phone. Now I just have to figure out how to get stuff on computer without e-mailing it. Which I could do if I wanted to pay for that.
Hey, pang or nostalgia. What do you speak of now? Old buildings in Johnson City, NY? Late evenings with library books in the upstairs of a home on an island in the Pacific Northwest? Different environments. Like two examples off a list of a hundred. Vive la difference.
(And when I read the words of strangers, oh how some court difference!)
A line came to mind: "haven't I been given everything, my life?"
It's from a poem called Sequel.

Sad and, but, yet...

De los amores no entiendo
y del dolor fui el primero
pescador, no soy bella
como duele el esmero
como duele
--De Los Amores

The Miracles song on the radio

Could be playing on a small island in the Pacific Northwest. Wet plants, rainy, rural, high school kids. The Big City. The Small City. Seattle to the Northeastern U.S., New York, Pennsylvania. In the car on a highway at 3 o'clock in the morning. During a strange season in flat, suburban Illinois. Co-ops, community gardens, army bases across the U.S. In graduate school, at a "good" corporate job, or in the background as you're barely scraping by and gaining a better understanding why some people might think about throwing themselves off a bridge because of money. To me it seems less like a love song and more like a lonely song. Maybe it could be playing on a bright morning in California, for an aging band member or groupie, a former go-go dancer. If only you believed... I think it was on the clock radio in Virginia recently and got in my head.
Maybe it's a good antidote to certain negative voices in the media.

School/work/etc.

Interesting to note that Mrs. B worked on the same floor as I did today. Opposite end of the building. Well, in theory. According to the class schedule. Perhaps it depends on her schedule...
Free literature obtained from another campus yesterday: numerous periodicals stamped with red letters spelling out "WITHDRAWN," including WSQ Fall/Winter 09, SIGNS Winter 2010, Preservation Nov/Dec 09, Audubon's Northern Virginia Bird Survey (cool!) and some others.
I was looking at how the websites for women's colleges in Virginia have changed and holy crap is this one ever PINK. It reminds me of Poochie.

Free!

What I got today from the discarded materials library cart at the community college I attend and work at part time is still in my car. TBA.

Oh.

So I just found out that according to the goodreads page, the author of As The Waltz Was Ending, a book which obsessed me for quite a while when I was young, was married to W. E. B. Griffin. And apparently, he is friends with an author (biographer of Patton) who is my stepfather's friend. Maybe that's how I heard that Patton believed in reincarnation. I think so.
Emma Macalik Butterworth. As The Waltz Was Ending.
14 customer reviews, but no image.
~~~~~
The Long Ride Home. Interesting. I'd like to try that sometime. But I'd have to be listening to music or a "book-on-(media source.)" I can't read on a train. I'd like to see how West Point looks as it looms over the river. I have a few memories (I was either a child or young teenager last time I was there) of the place. Wow. I could have been such a New Yorker.

moment of zen

Drink super sweet Lemon Ginger Echinacea drink while staring at/reading the roommate's "refrigerator magnet" (which is actually this sweet message cut off a coffee bag): Wake the Fuck Up!!! Before bedtime.

Little window, FB

Tonight's internet experience: out of all the FB friends, the one who is most in need of medical treatment (and luckily has insurance,) seemed to be the most disappointed about Coakley losing. Because she cares! Another FB friend has orders to assist (though at this time not actually travel to) Haiti. And...some pictures just now fell out of the top of my closet. It is not so happy, this idea of things falling down. I thought so long ago and now I am reminded. But here and now, these were just some old pictures in a plastic container...Maybe I'll put one up...one of these days. If I can scan any. Guess that for now, I'll just pick them up.
Well, thank you for falling down like that. Peru pictures.
Also my other friend (who I actually strangely dreamed about being with me as she was dangling from a cliff a few sleeps ago, yeah, great, really thank you for falling down, box of photos) is doing more gardening projects!
A dream I wrote about on June 24, 2008 was a good one.

Let us see

what wikipedia has to say to us about bras, shall we?

This I just read

I watched the trailer for Brazil for some reason. But before that...
Break-in, Clementines, Postcard, Juggling.
Ah, Clementine.
Ah, Clementine.

This Year

For various reasons, I forsee myself getting rid of even more things that I have some attachment to but probably don't really need and I will learn to live with less, yes. Maybe that will be freeing.

TV oh TV

Fine form I was in for watching Jon Stewart and Colbert this evening. Among other things, I got to see a citizen pontificating on the greatness of her moment as an African American woman voting against same sex marriage in New Jersey, and a MUST-SEE musical number by Mr. C and Philip Glass for President O. with an awesome cat playing the piano. I love you. Not only that, but yesterday I could while away the time by pondering who it would be more awful to be stuck in traffic with, this crazy lady from Trading Spouses or Karen the Bridezilla.
Or a few horrible customers I have encountered.
Or a few coworkers on a few bad days.
Yay, Waitress. ;-]

The last CD I bought

I bought it in Sedona. It was the newest one by this guy: Wolf's Robe.
He said that traditionally there were many ceremonies for the men, to get them in touch with the more feminine side of themselves. Women as "live-givers" were considered to be more advanced than the men, and men as "life-takers" had to go through ceremonies to advance themselves.
(And with music!!!!)
~~~~~
On a different topic, I just read about Miep Gies. Now I am also remembering another book, another, and another. Weird. There's this actress, I recall a friend telling me she was her boyfriend's cousin, she was in this movie, and that was about the time I was reading them...Also I read books about ballerinas. And, oh, when I was younger, there were some illustrations of this book on a PBS show. Honestly, it can be spooky to think about the past. (Well, Adios, past!) Ack. Yesterday they were circulating some petition flyers at the public library. More budget cuts. (Maybe people should read nature more than words then. If they can!!!)

D. M. in Mehico?

Telenovela inspired perhaps?
Or something out of the "Old West" concept.
Personal Jesus video.

Messiah complex

Shall I enjoy this movie anyway?
There's not only white versions out there though.
People are still so uncomfortable with feminism.
I did enjoy getting sucked into Field of Dreams on TV a few hours ago.

D-words

Divinity, damnation, disgust, despair.
Yesterday I heard a story of a girl I used to work with (at the restaurant) who comes from a completely wacked-out family and just got pregnant by some guy who accuses her of wanting to ruin his life. Nice, right? Sometimes I think I hate tea partyers. I think I can easily hate people who are insensitive to poor people. And I think our president is not like that.

Colorful complications

Arise in communications, children, family/societal roles and such. I was thinking about this because a bunch of people I know had kids this year. (And unlike in the past, they were all women gave birth and it was all around the end of 2009.) Everyone acts differently about this. Some people are amazingly laid back, some are grateful but seem to be quite stressed, and some are in between. Some people have kids and marry early. Some never do either. Some adopt kids because they can't have their own. Some have a spouse to help them and some don't have that. Some people have large extended families around them and some do not. Some people care for all kinds of people and just not their own offspring. Everyone has different stories...

Sedona Excentric

Finally getting a chance to catch up on all that travel literature.

I think I am an American

One of these days I'm gonna go visit Binghamton, NY. I was a loyal little Latham-Albany-New Yorker when I was eight. And I hung out with Ph.D.s in bars in my mid-twenties, and thought about Italian and Irish and Greek diners, and Cixous and Christine and crumbling architecture. Messed up medievalists who liked drugs. Less messed up people who lived with gospel musicians. And I rode carousels all summer, and didn't sleep until 4 a.m. because that's when the apartment finally cooled down. And I drove to wacky little places that I sometimes didn't even know were actually in "Pennsyltucky." I could have lived there, actually, for longer. But I didn't. And I'm going to go back to Chicago, too. Most recently I saw Sedona. And L.A.'s suburbs. I passed little houses with Mexican music emanating from them on the way to a grocery store with a counter that sold foods like "lengua" and neighbors wished me "Happy New Year" and also I saw fake grass and palm trees and saguaros and solar wind farms. And "In and Out."

Beautiful movie

with beautiful award-winning (ha ha) music: Once.

At 4:20

I love staring at the flowers on the filmy black fabric which drapes the window glass in the late after noon light before the sun goes down.

Cover

Sinfonia Agridulce